One of the ponderables - toward the beginning - of the short Idaho governorship of Jim Risch was, to what extent was he simply doing his own thing and to what extent was he coordinating with probable future governor and fellow Republican C.L. "Butch" Otter?
Risch made a number of major appointments early on, for example; were these run past Otter, so that they would not be short-timers? Risch and his staff put considerable work into developing a governor's budget proposal; to what extent was he doing something Otter would be willing to submit?
We now have at least partial answers, and the upshot seems to be: Risch was mostly out there on his own. Otter's few comments about the Risch budget seemed a little dismissive - no particular optimism about his support for it. And early on, he dismissed several Risch appointees (Vaughn Killeen at Corrections, Carolyn Terteling-Payne at human resources, for two) and a large batch of Risch re-appointees he could have unseated months ago.
That's not to suggest the Risch and Otter people did not communicate, but it does suggest Risch was very much doing what he wanted to do, irrespective of what Otter would do later on.